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The Toy Guns

20 February 2015

America’s preoccupation with guns is something I have been aware of for most of my life. I was raised in a household where guns, violence and war were mixed together in one pot.The slogan, “What if you gave a war and no one came?”was dinner table conversation. Guns, wars, violence and what could be done about these aspects of our culture were among daily conversations.It was necessary to stamp it out. So what was I to do when my son turned three and all he wanted was a gun? This series is an exploration of the dialogue I had within myself as I was forced to confront the desires of a child, the pro and anti gun culture in the United States, my desire to control my children’s desires and the overall ethical and moral questions that guns present us with. The series consists of fourteen 20×24 cibachrome prints. Each image was shot with a large format camera on a weathered piece of plywood chosen as a background since the gun appears to be woven into the very fabric of our society.

Each gun was photographed as a specimen not unlike a butterfly that would be pinned and examined.